Savin' Me
by DesertCat87
Summary: G1: The history of a saboteur is always shady even for Jazz. Chapter two uploaded.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Just so you all know, the beginning to this fic is dark. It's sad, it's not pretty… don't like robotic gore, don't read. Granted, it's only the first page, but I wanted to make that clear. After that though, it's much more light hearted. A little comedy to offset the horror on the "raid scene." That said, I also wanna say this isn't a romance fic for once. I know, shocking aint it? ;) Des can write something with out a love scene? Lol Hope ya all like it! Please R&R : D

**Jigsaw **

**Chapter 1**

The city was burning.

All around him, buildings were crumbling under the onslaught of war. People everywhere were running for their lives despite the fact that most wouldn't live through the next cycle. Amidst the chaos, that one fledgling was drowning in the crowd around him, as if he physically couldn't breath. He struggled to get a breath, to keep his head water, but didn't seem to be working He tried to make a run for it again and again but the more he tried to disentangle himself from the crowd, the more he was pushed down, hitting the ground hard as the others made their way out of the city. Luckily he was pushed into an alleyway at last, free from the river of screaming, panicked mechs and femmes as they continued to rush past.

Panicked, he took a look at his surrounding but to his despair, his creator was still no where to be found. The fledgling had lost his creator somewhere along the line, where he wasn't sure but he did know he was alone. His creator had not found him, like he had promised.

More shots were going off over his head, too close for comfort. More screaming… more death. Across the streets he could see the merchants- all were lying on the floor, their goods taken by smiling, evil faces. Heavy load, Haze, Brimstone…all the merchants he had grown up around were now lying in smoking ruins. Other mechs near by were crying out in agony, crawling at the ground and making prayers to Primus while some just quietly flickered out of existence.

Horrified, the fledgling crawled into an open panel in the side of a building with nothing else to do but wait for it to end.

An end to his life, or an end to the chaos, either was welcome.

OOooOOooOO

"Hey Jiver, lookie what I found! Good as new fender. Few dents, but it should work. Whatcha think?" The red mech held up the metal fender to the blue mech next to him, running his hands along the surface. "I know it aint the best condition, but I bet Duel could knock it back int' shape."

"You could give it a try, if he's in a good mood and you got some creds to spare." Jive tossed back with a good natured snort, accidentally tripping on some wreckage behind him and falling on his aft.

"I love how you guys talk about me like I'm not even here."

Jive fell back all the way, lying on his back to see a tall green bulky mech behind him. "Awh com'on Duel, have a sense of humor! If we didn't make fun of ya, who would?"

"I'd hire someone." Duel huffed, "Now we got work to do. We gotta grab what's left of the place before the other scavengers get here and take all the good stuff."

The green mech kicked Jive once and stumbled off to find more scraps among the dead. Duel, unlike his two counterparts, didn't care too much that the ground he was standing on and taking advantage of, was still littered with dead and still dying mechs. He needed parts for money, and now was the time to find them good and cheap- free in fact. No better deal than free.

"You need to lighten up, Big D. Aint like we're running on a clock!" Jive shouted back, but Duel just waved dismissively.

Ruse gave Jive a pat on the back and moved away to join in the hunt for parts. "Give it up Jiver, he aint gunna listen, ya know. Just get back t' lookin' around."

"Yeah, yeah." The blue mech rolled over and got to his feet again, wiping off the oil and grease that had gotten on his paintjob. Duel told him to look for anything that wasn't destroyed that he could sell off to Spades, so he might as well get it done. It was better than having to listen to the gruff older mech's complaints. With a sigh, Jive reluctantly went back to kicking around the wreckage and scraps, being mindful of the bodies. No need to upset the dead. Thankfully for his fuel tank, most of the mechs and femmes at his feet were no one he had known personally but it was depressing either way he looked at it. So much death, so much distruction. For what? To take over a Neutral city? There was nothing in Demircon to begin with, no energy stock piles, no reserves, no army- nothing. The place was a waste land long before Megatron's troops tore it open. Now, it was a mass graveyard.

_Urugh…_

"Holy Primus!" The blue mech flew backwards, tripping over the scraps again. "Somethin' alive in there!"

Ruse glanced over his shoulder at his brother's cry completely unsurprised. "You hit your head again, didn'tcha Jiver?"

"No! That was yesterday." Jive gave him a hurt look, "And I'm tellin' ya, somethin's alive in there, Ruse. It made a sound, like a groan or something. Take a look, will ya?" He kept his optics glued on the groaning scrap pile, waiting for the moment he knew was going to happen- some undead creature was going to jump out of there and attack him.

"Slagging sparkling, Jive. What are ya, a cycle old?" Ruse half grumbled as bent over and moved the scraps back to see whatever it was that had Jive backpedaling from the spot. Jive always seemed to get spooked by his own shadow. "You're being ridiculous. There's no way anyone survived this," he muttered again, lifting off a larger piece of metal plating. "The whole slagging city is dead, yet you are convinced something is under here. Now I know I aint the smartest bolt in the toolbo- Holy Slag!" Ruse cursed, triping over Jive and back onto his own aft. "There is something under there!"

Jive shoved Ruse off with a quiet mumble of, "Told you so."

The fledgling on the other hand, shifted in his hole and peered up at the other two, struggling with the remaining scrap pieces covering his little shelter. The first one to curse at him was blue and orange colored, with a smaller frame but bigger feet. The second was red and black with a seeker like design. They didn't look dangerous though, despite the curses and shouts of surprise. Perhaps that meant the coast was clear. Besides, he knew they weren't Decepticons and that was the only thing that mattered to him at the moment.

"I… um… is it over? Is it safe to come back out?" he asked, and poked his head out. Both mechs just continued to stare at him like he was some alien experiment or a sideshow freak. It was amazing that anyone had survived the raid. The only reason they did was because they were under the city in the catacombs. Ruse had to poke the black and white mech just to make sure he was real. Several times.

The fledgling squirmed, "Cut that out, will ya? No more pokin' at me." He dusted off his armor with a scowl on his face as he pulled himself out of the hole. Apparently these two weren't going to help much at all.

Red nudged Blue with an elbow, his gaze still focused wryly on the fledgling.

"I, uh, think it's alive, Jive."

"I think you're right, Ruse.

"So what do we do with it?"

"Duel?"

"Duel."

"Duel!" Blue and red mech turned around simultaneously, and shouted the same thing. The poor confused fledgling covered his audio and winced. These two were loud! On command another mech came over but this one was much bigger than the two he had already met.

"Is this something Spades will want, ya think?" The red one cackled to the big green mech. Big green shoved him and came up closer to him, eyeing him in the same fashion Red and Blue did. He suddenly felt like he was an animal on display, like they were sizing him up.

Circling a few times, Green stopped in front of him. "No, but I bet we could use him. He's young, good strong frame- I bet he'd be good t' have round. What's your name, kid?"

"M-my name? Who are y'? I aint tellin' ya anything, till you tell me who you guys are an' what happened." The young one took a few steps back from the trio. He wasn't sure who they were, or what they wanted but they were a little too close to him at the moment. Not to mention they were such fast talkers. It was like they were trying to plan his life in all of the matter of a few minutes.

"Kinda obvious what happened, don'tcha think?" Jive spoke up, standing back up again. "City's gone, kid. You're lucky t' be alive. First one we found still kickin' too. Lots of people fled after th' raid."

The fledgling's head, slunk down to his chest plate with a depressing clunk. Hopefully his creator was one of the ones who made it out of the city but for some reason, he doubted it. If he made it out, he would have taken him out too. No way would he have left him all alone like this- he loved his creation, didn't he? He wouldn't have fled without taking care of him first…

Ruse nudged Jive to shut him up, seeing the fledgling's face droop. Jive didn't usually pick up on sensitive issues. In fact, he always shot his mouth off before thinking too much about it. Not to say he wasn't sensitive… he just wasn't empathic. "Er… look, kid. My name's Ruse, this sorry mistake over here's my brother Jive," he indicated the blue mech and then to the big green one. "And that's Duel, he aint too friendly t' anybody, so don't take it personally."

Duel nodded, lowering his gaze to the short black and white mech, "And you're just what we been lookin' for. See, we need a few able body mech's round and you fit the tab."

"What he means t' say," Jive interrupted, "is we could use a little help see. We were all kinda down on our luck so we kinda banded together. Y' got a creator er something'?"

The fledgling shook his head sadly, "I don't know what happened to him- got separated from 'im during all the runnin' and screamin'."

"Great!" Jive came up behind him and through an arm over his shoulder. "Not in the sense that it's great y' lost yer creator or anything, but-"

"Yeah shut up, Jive. You aint helping." Ruse came up to the other side of the black and white, tossing his arm over his other shoulder. "What he means to say, is it's gunna be great adding you to the team. What's your name again?"

"Jazz. M'name's-"

"Got it, you're Jazz." Jive interrupted again. "So welcome to the group- comes with a free gift too! Sorry we're outta wind chimes at the moment, but new shipment's coming in next week-"

"Jive?"

"Yeah Ruse?"

"Shut the slag up."

"Yes, Ruse."

OOooOOooOO


	2. Chapter 2

**Savin' Me  
Chapter 2  
**

_Takes place long after the introduction/ chapter one._

**  
**Hazard looked behind him, as the small femme struggled to carry her load. His poor creation was hardly able to keep from falling backwards as her feet kept moving in the same zigzagged pattern, her knees threatening to collapse under the weight. If only Hazard could have given her a better life. It never seemed to get any easier for either of them. But then, what was done was done and he now knew he had trapped himself and his two creations to his own pit of despair. A pit also known by Demircon, a once proud city-state now infested with rust and decay.

Hazard turned his back, and resumed his pace while he himself struggled to hold his own load back to the repair shop. "Com'on, lil gal. We're almost there." He shouted back to her, shifting the rusted scrap metal in his arms. "Patch' aint gunna let us get our creds if we're late again."

"_Arrrug," _the femme stretched her lips into a straight line. "I'm trying. It's just too much….I-I can't." Her knees started to buckle again, zigzagging in a hurried rush. "I'm going to drop it-I can't-" And finally the her hands lost their purchase on the slippery metal.

But they didn't hit the ground.

"Hey there, petro-bunny!" Jive swiftly stepped in front of the staggering femme, "why don't you leave that to me, eh?" He said gallantly, doing an impressive bow and snagging the metal from her hands. Ruse did the same for Hazard, grabbing at least what he could from the older stubborn mech before Hazard had a chance to argue with him.

"Because!" She shot back, trying to grab her pieces back. "I can do it all by myself. I'm strong."

Jive grabbed for the pieces back in a tug of war with the younger femme. "You're as strong as a petro-bunny, don't fool yourself. Just let me-"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Ye-"

Ruse, who was standing beside Hazard, merely shook his head. "Are you a sparkling too now, Jive? You're fightin' with a cycle-old femme, dipstick! You honestly think y' gunna win against that?"

The blue and orange mech nor the femme paid attention to them though and continued arguing. Duel and Jazz lagged behind, each carrying their own loads of scraps and materials. "Keep it moving, we got work t' get done." Duel barked at the other four, pushing past them to get to the shop door where Patchjob was already heating metal for the work at hand. Reluctantly Jive gave in and "allowed" the femme to win their argument and trudged into the shop behind Duel and the others with a quiet mummble of "I still won."

Jazz sat his load beside the unofficial leader's pile too. He wasn't one to question Duel either. He hadn't been around the three of them for long, only a few cycles, but he was quite able to understand not to cross the big green mech. Ruse kept telling him that Duel would never hurt him of course, but the nasty sneer on his face made Jazz second guess his friend's opinion.

"Alrigh' Patch. We got y'r parts. Where's our cut?" Duel picked up a wrench off the old workbench and idly mangled the metal in his hands, leaning on the bench with one foot crossed over the other.

The mech in question looked grumpily over his shoulder where he had been attending his smoldering metal. "One second, younglin'. I got m'hands full. You wait."

"Aint waiting. I got hot parts here an' me and m'boys need creds to eat with. So either you start shellin' out those cred or I pull them outta your-"

"Don't use tha' tone with me!" The old mech snapped back. "I'll get your creds, youngin'." Patchjob looked like he was about to go back to his smelter but then wisely obeyed Duel for fear of bodily harm. He limped back toward the workbench and grabbed out a small box-covered in more locks than Jazz had ever seen on any door- and pulled out a few creds. "I'll give y' one quart even for this slag. Not a cred more."

"Slag you old man! That's worth at least 3 quarts." Duel cursed and smacked Patchjob's hand away, the credits going flying in all different directions. "Y' give us what we earned or I take it up with Spades."

The engineer visually flinched at the name. "Y' wouldn't."

"I would an' you know it, old man. I bet Spades wouldn't like t' here you're cheatin' some o' his Scavengers, would he?" The green mech sneered, "He needs us t' get the 'Bot and 'Con weapons and he needs y' to fix um. We're even partners, Patch. Spades ain't gunna like t' hear his tech aint payin' his Scavs. He wont make creds either if he aint got his parts. So give us what we need an' you'll get your parts."

Hazard looked from Duel to his business partner and knew automatically they were going to be out the extra twenty creds. No one could fight with Duel. He had more strength in one hand than a mere repair tech had in his body- or hers with the case of his unnamed creation. If he wanted to, Duel could literally rip them apart as Hazard himself had seen happen to a former Scavenger when the mech had tried to cheat Duel. Besides, he had a point and Spades was much more frightening to face than Duel.

"Alright. Y' win, youngin'." Patchjob replied roughly, trying to keep what dignity he still had which in all reality wasn't much. Of course, Hazard knew from years of working with the other mech, Patchjob would never let anyone know he had no dignity. In fact, he made it his daily habit to make sure everyone knew he was the greatest repair tech this side of the district. Not that he was actually a first generation, rusted, repair tech with shaking hands who had Hazard around do all the work because he himself couldn't hold himself together long enough to make a repair.

With great reluctance, Patchjob handed over the creds. If there weren't several others present, Harzard could have sworn his partner was going to kiss each cred as they past from owner to owner. With the last cred now in Duel's hand, his giant fist closed and subspaced his precious credits.

"Good doin' business with y' Patch." Duel nodded to the brothers and Jazz and made his way out the door, nearly knocking the femme over at the doorway.

"See y' Patchy!" Jive tossed off a mock solute and followed Ruse.

The four mechs lived together not a block away, in an old entrance to the catacombs. Duel had found the place first, not too long before he ended up meeting the brothers. It wasn't much of a home really, and there wasn't any separate rooms as all of them lived in a hallway passage. Their makeshift beds were just piles of old crates. Their walls were dripping in rust. Yet, the place was still home.

"Home sweet home!" Jive called out and bounded into the catacombs headfirst followed by a crash that sounded Jive's head hitting the wall again. "I'm okay!"

"You know… we really outta get that fixed," Ruse mused. Duel just kicked his way in and stomped over to the table in the middle of their one roomed home and dumped out the creds. There, he proceeded to sort them out into equal piles of four.

Jazz smirked at Ruse as he helped the poor dazed blue and orange mech to his feet. "Get what fixed, Ruse? The door, or Jive? I think we might get better luck with the door."

"I was talking about the door."

"Abuse! I didn't do anything this time and you guys still gotta give me slag?" Jive whined, rubbing his head and holding on to the wall for support until he was able to see only one of his brother again instead of the multiple clones of him. "I don't feel the love in this room."

"Awh, now com'on. Y' know we love ya." Jazz grined and threw his arms over the other mech's shoulders. "You're like our very own petro-puppy. You're like… th' mascot!"

"Does that mean I get my picture on buttons?"

"Y' can buy all the buttons y' want, y' orange plated idiot. Com'on over here an' get your cut, mechs!" Duel called, gleefully feeling the credits as they slipped though his fingers. "We got paid good this time. Dang time too. Patch cheated us last time and this time he more than made up for it."

"How much we got?"

"Good few pints each."

"That's great!" Jive pushed away from the others, his temporary concussion long forgotten with the promise of creds to his name. "Jive gunna go party tonight!"

"Party?" Ruse asked, "At where, y'fragger? You can't go into any of the bars anymore. Y'got banned when you slagged off the bartender and broke th' only high grade dispenser in the district."

"True… but if I go in my disguise no one will dare recognize me!" The blue and orange mech boasted and ran over to dig out an old face mask from his pile of scraps. "See? No more Jive."

"It's just a faceplate, idiot." Ruse muttered and crossed his arms over his chest. That did it. His brother had to have been the stupidest mech ever spawned. How had they come from the same person anyway? "We still know it's you."

Jive just grinned knowingly, like he did every time just before he created some kind of mayhem. "Yeah but will the bartender know that?"

OOooOOooOO

Author's notes: Just a quick note this time because I'm sleepy and really lazy tonight. Much thanks to Tirya for helping me with this series. And lettme tell you it's going to be a doozy. This one might not have had too much action, but it's going to be coming up. I know it might not seem like it now, but it will have a lot more Jazz and some cameo's from others later on. And the name change actually came around because I'm a huge fan of Nickelback and their new song, "Savin' me" fits this fic perfectly. Thanks again for the reviews on the last one and I will try to get to your requests. Oh and no, I don't own the Transformers, I only own Jynx, Patchjob, Ruse, Jive and Duel. Thanks again everyone! Please leave those reviews : D


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